I do not consider it an insult, but rather a compliment to be called an agnostic. I do not pretend to know where many ignorant men are sure - that is all that agnosticism means.
Interpretation
Agnosticism is a position of humility regarding knowledge and belief.
In this quote, Clarence Darrow expresses that he sees being called an agnostic not as an insult, but as a compliment. He emphasizes that agnosticism reflects a recognition of the limitations of human knowledge, contrasting it with the certainty displayed by those who claim to know truths without sufficient evidence. This perspective champions intellectual humility and openness to the complexities of existence and belief.
In practice
During a philosophical discussion about the nature of belief systems.
With all their faults, trade unions have done more for humanity than any other organization of men that ever existed. They have done more for decency, for honesty, for education, for the betterment of the race, for the developing of character in men, than any other association of men.
Do I need to argue to Your Honor that cruelty only breeds cruelty? That hatred only causes hatred; that if there is any way to soften this human heart which is hard enough at its best, if there is any way to kill evil and hatred and all that goes with it, it is not through evil and hatred and cruelty; it is through charity, and love, and understanding?
Chase after the truth like all hell.
No other offense has ever been visited with such severe penalties as seeking to help the oppressed.
Liberty is the most jealous and exacting mistress that can beguile the brain and soul of man. She will have nothing from him who will not give her all. She knows that his pretended love serves but to betray. But when once the fierce heat of her quenchless, lustrous eyes have burned into the victim's heart, he will know no other smile but hers.
The trouble with law is lawyers.
First, if it is true that a spatial order organizes an ensemble of possibilities (e.g., by a place in which one can move) and interdictions (e.g., by a wall that prevents one from going further), than the walked actualizes some of these possibilities. In that way, he makes them exist as well as emerge. But he also moves them about and he invents others, since the crossing, drifting away, or improvisation of walking privilege, transform, or abandon spatial elements.
But Philip was impatient with himself; he called to mind his idea of the pattern of life: the unhappiness he had suffered was no more than part of a decoration which was elaborate and beautiful; he told himself strenuously that he must accept with gaiety everything, dreariness and excitement, pleasure and pain, because it added to the richness of the design.
In analysing history do not be too profound, for often the causes are quite superficial.
When we look for things there is nothing but mind, and when we look for mind there is nothing but things.
Wordplay hides a key to reality that the dictionary tries in vain to lock inside every free word.
This process is alchemy: its founder is the smith Vulcan.
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